1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operation for displaying image data in an image-display apparatus connected to a network. The image data is held in multiple image-processing apparatuses connected to the network.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an increasing movement to build a home network by connecting digital devices on the network to cause the digital devices to work in cooperation with each other as the digital devices have come into widespread use in recent years. The building of the home network allows the devices on the home network to share Audio Visual (AV) contents, such as music and/or video contents. The interconnectivity between devices in the building of such a home network is defined by Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
DLNA devices acquire Internet Protocol (IP) addresses when they participate in networks and send notices of information about services of their own devices on the networks. DLNA devices having a function of controlling other devices refer to the service information to request the services from the other devices on the network in order to perform various operations.
For example, it is presumed that multiple image-processing apparatuses, such as digital cameras, which hold images and an image-display apparatus capable of displaying the images form a home network. In this case, each image-processing apparatus notifies the apparatuses on the network that the image-processing apparatus provides a service for providing the images when the image-processing apparatus participates in the network. The image-display apparatus notifies the apparatuses on the network that the image-display apparatus provides a service for displaying the images when the image-display apparatus participates in the network. A control apparatus having a function of controlling the other apparatuses on the network refers to the service information to acquire information about the images (data sizes, the dates and times when the images are captured, titles, etc.) from each image-processing apparatus. The control apparatus can display the images in the image-display apparatus in an arbitrary order on the basis of the acquired information to perform a slide show of the images captured by the multiple apparatuses on the network.
Technologies concerning pause and restart of slide shows include a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-341391. In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-341391, a restart position is stored when a slide show is paused and the slide show is performed again from the stored restart position in response to an instruction to restart the slide show.
However, the technologies in the related art do not consider participation of new image-processing apparatuses in the home networks after determining the display orders of images in the slide shows.